“Locomotion.” Merriam-Webster defines it thusly:
However, I prefer to think of it as the way stuff moves, or something, and different stuff…uh, locomomotes?…differently. Consider for example the loping strides of the mighty antelope:
Or the marvelous efficiency of the electrical motorcar:
Or the multimodalist, who drives around in a Smart car with a rowboat on top, then puts the car in the rowboat and paddles it to his final destination:
And here’s how I’ve been locomoting myself lately:
That is of course a Rivendell Roaduno, as ridden by none other than Grant Petersen himself in his freshly-published New Yorker profile:
Yep, that’s right, Grant Petersen and Rivendell got New Yorker-ed:
It’s a proper story, too, and not one of those little thumbnail sketches where they’re subtly mocking the person:
I can’t decide which is more surprising: that The New Yorker has published a story about Rivendell, or that it’s taken this long for The New Yorker to publish a story about Rivendell. The New Yorker has chronicled the curlicued aspects of our culture since the days of the spats, so it’s astounding that Old Man Petersen’s House of Ferrous Velocipedes and Canvas Curios has eluded their twee rapaciousness for so long:
The title of the story notwithstanding, there’s nothing stopping you from riding competitively on a Rivendell, though in my experience when it does happen it’s usually an accident. For example, yesterday I accidentally found myself on the Yonkers Marathon course:
When I stay there’s nothing stopping you I mean that literally, because while the streets were closed nobody steered me off the course, and I only realized what was happening when the guy on the loudspeaker started yelling at me. Nobody notices you when you’re on a bicycle, which is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that you can often do whatever you want, but the cure is that by the time someone finally does notice you either they’re very angry at you or you’re dead.
As for the Roaduno, it’s my current obsession, I’m pleased to report that the controversial two-speed drivetrain is working beautifully:
Yes, I spent pretty much an entire day struggling with it like an idiot when all I needed was a fresh cog. I do realize that there are people who find this setup objectionable, and I do understand–from a purely aesthetic perspective, I myself don’t love the idea of a derailleur hanging out back there performing only half its intended function, and of course there’s nothing tidier than a singlespeed drivetrain. However, now that I’ve gotten it set up I don’t care, because I absolutely love it and I don’t see myself changing it back anytime soon:
The upshot of it is that you’ve got a “road” gear and a “trail” gear, and it’s less like having a geared bike than it is like having two singlespeeds in one:
And believe me, I know a thing or two about singlespeeds. In fact, in 2008 I was the 183rd-best singlespeeder IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, so unless you’re one of the 182 singlespeeders who were better than me you’re in to position to question me:
In fact, the low gear on the Roaduno is pretty much identical to the one I used on my Engin–shown here with the tires I’m now using on the Roaduno, since towards the end there I was subconsciously trying to turn the Engin into what the Roaduno basically is:
The Engin of course was born as a singlespeed 29er, and I got it at a time when I lived still deep in Brooklyn, far from any dirt, and would generally drive places to go “mountain biking,” whatever the hell that means anymore. But as the years went by that changed. I moved much closer to the trails, and instead of driving somewhere to grind away on mountain bike trails for a few hours I factored the car out of the equation and incorporated bits of singletrack into more varied rides. While I did make attempts to transform the Engin into a more “ride-to-the-ride” type of bike, I ultimately admitted to myself we’d grown apart, and so I finally let it go. So the Roaduno embodies the qualities I want in a singlespeed these days–which, ironically, includes the ability to shift, go figure:
Certainly there are those who would argue this is contradictory, and that if you’re going to set up a drivetrain this way you might as well ride a geared bike:
However, I prefer to think of it simply as a drivetrain for aging singlespeeders, and the velocipedal equivalent of a pair of reading glasses:
He’s about ready to delve into that New Yorker story.